SCARY

The author leaves it to his imaginary friend Horris to squire readers through several dozen spread-sized excursions into the realm of the icky—from leeches, intestinal parasites and the spiny Candiru fish that makes sub-surface urinating into the Amazon so exciting, to the guillotine and the real Bluebeard. Featuring lurid headings (“Under Cover of Darkness, They Feed”), writhing, toothy computer generated silhouettes on nearly every page and heavily ironic commentary (“What a bunch of fun-loving folks those Romans were!”), this is tailor-made for the legions of cheap-thrills addicts that haunt fourth grades everywhere. Though speaking of cheap, some pages, particularly toward the end, are so poorly printed as to be illegible. (Nonfiction. 8-10)